Bloddwyn Bluainach, 'Ghost of the Docks'
Bloddwyn grew up at his parents farmhouse near the ill famed town Korbel. At the age of 13 he witnessed slavers killing his parents Padraigh and Riallah Irae Bluanach, he also saw that his mother suddenly grew 'shadow wings' during the fray.
Bloddwyn was carried all the way to Rykthaven by the slavers. He bit off the ear tip of the horned slaver who had killed his father. During their long journey in a cage he got to know the tiefling girl Jhessalia, from wo he later got separated, and whom he told to put a blue ribbon in the window so he can find her. He presumably witnessed two slavers shapechanging and killing a boy. In Rykthaven, mysterious strangers rescued him, and Bloddwyn killed his first man, a slaver dwarf, with a lucky shot in the neck with a hand crossbow.
His rescuers, the Caldis priest Adelberg and a monster hunter called Farkasz, brought them to a cellar near the Caldis temple, where a rather harsh woman called "the Alchemist" gave them shelter. The rescued boys were ill with fever and so the Alchemist decided to give them a strong potion which killed the other boys, but cured Bloddwyn. But the potion changed him: His skin and hair had turned white, his left eye bloodshot red. He also seemed to have lost his mother's gift of darkvision.
Over the next years, the Alchemist gave him books (religion, history, arcana, Elvish), and he became an eager student. He also began to investigate concerning the events that he had witnessed (tieflings, shapechangers,...) and monsters in general. Farkasz started to teach him weapon training, and Bloddwyn turned out to be very skillfull with the hand crossbow. At the age of 16 he was allowed to explore Rykhaven on his own. One evening he got to know an excentric gnome called Bernard at the harbor. On the same evening, he single-handedly killed two 'drowner', creatures from the sea who had slaughtered a merchant while visiting a prostitute (the latter survived thanks to Bloddwyn). Thanks to Bernard, Bloddwyn began to have a reputation as "the Ghost" at the docks.
During this first fight and a hard training session with Farkasz, Bloddwyn had the feeling that his blood 'boiled' during these fights. Shortly after, he found out that when he hurt himself, his blood could imbue his weapon with lightning energy that hurt his enemy. Sometimes, he was able to kind of bind his enemy with his gaze. The Alechimist was extremly interested in these abnormal features, but neither she nor Adelberg could explain them. Concerning his mother, she told him that she was maybe a (fallen?) aasimar.
In these days, Bloddwyn also got to know the gnome Marcello Lichtenstenn who sells crossbows in Smalltown, and Bloddwyn was extremely fascinated by his crafts, so he deciced to become his best customer.
One day a prestigious ship from the Realm of the Middle entered the harbor only to sail away shortly after some men where dropped (dead?) into the water. Farkasz took Bloddwyn with him to find one of the dead bodies for a priest. They entered a dangerous drowner-infested swamp and learned that drowner are quite dangerous when they hunt in swarms.
On another occasion, Bloddwyn helped his friend Bernard to find Clarissa, a Halfling girl from Brandinburgh's Lot which was lured into the woods around Ludvig's Folley by the 'dryad' Verana. Through his investigations Bloddwyn found out that the dryad was in fact a green hag. When he confronted her together with Farkasz and Olric, they had to fight against three green hags. They managed to kill two of them, as the third one swore vengeance against Bloddwyn.
On the docks, Bloddwyn saved the life of Lydia, 'Mother of the Docks', when hired thugs tried to kill her before the city council elections. His old friend and now turned city guard half-orc Yandrak helped him.
After three years without any trace of the tiefling girl Jhessalia, Bloddwyn found out that it was Valderbach, the right hand of the hedonist and disgusting city councelor Obus Beq who had bought her three years ago from the slavers. However, Bloddwyn needed to gain more experience before being able to face these powerful enemies.
On the night before midwinter solstice ('Day of the Demons') before his 17th birthday, Bloddwyn accepted Bernard's invitation to visit a dancing show of elven artists, and he joined him to drink wine before they went to a moulin-rouge-like establishment. The artists turned out to be part of a demonic cult. The songs of their leader as well as the rhythm of their drummer led the elves to slaughter their guests. Bloddwyn survived, but was unable to stop them or rescue the other guests, so he swore never again to drink with Bernard. This massacre was just the beginning of the demon night, during which various cults haunted the streets. Bloddwyn joined Olric to fight a cult who infected many people with demonic slime. He witnessed the Iiudash priests and the Reavers burning all infected people... again Bloddwyn swore never to be as helpless again as he had felt during this long midwinter night.
At a public trial because of these incidents, city councilor Beq accused the Iiudash priests for burning the infected people. Bloddwyn delivered a plea of not guilty for his friend Olric, and the priests were found not guilty. At the trial, Bloddwyn also noticed a young tiefling woman in Beq's entourage, and he recognised her as Jhessalia. Bloddwyn told her that he had never stopped looking for her. Beq took notice of their acquaintance and, surprisingly, invited Bloddwyn for dinner. Although Bloddwyn did not know wether it was a good idea, he accepted the invitation, and Yandrak insisted to join him.
At the dinner in Beq's luxurious villa, he and Yandrak saw numerous mutilated slaves with soulless eyes, only Jhessalia seemed to have survived without becoming a soulless zombie. This further convinced him that he must find a way to free Jhessalia one day.
After months of resisting to break into the Alchemist's study room, his curiosity finally won and he hired a gnome to forge a picklock. In the study room, he found letters between Adelberg and the Alchemiste indicating that Bloddwyns aasimar heritage seemed to have been desired by them for what they had in mind with him. A few weeks later, the Alchemiste returned from her journey, together with two other bloodhunter recruits.
[...]
After his first years fighting monsters and becoming aware of deeper and deeper roots of evil in the city of Rykthaven (city councelor Obus Beq cooperating with demon princes and thereby creating a demonic portal, a reaver city councelor worshipping Devils,...), he had to leave the city after he had rescued Jhessa from a chaindevil's torture chamber beneath the reavers' headquarter. He left Rykthaven in the night his friend Olric Fireheart had died during his revenge against the reavers. Bloddwyn decided to go on a quest to Eversted in order to gain desperately needed deeper knowledge about demons. Jhessalia, Yandrak and Bernard joined Bloddwyn on his quest, while his friend Farkasz stayed in Rykthaven. In his fight against evil in Rykthaven he had killed drowners, hags, demonic cultists, various undead creatures - and the man who had initiated his transformation into a blood hunter, thereby beeing responsible for Bloddwyn's and Jhessalia's enslavery and the murder of his parents, Adelberg van Kymden, high priest of Caldis. But he also left the city in a darker state than before, without the priests Adelberg and Olric, leaving a very bitter aftertaste. Bloddwyn swore that he would come back to fight evil in Rykthaven.
In Eversted Bloddwyn and his companions found the first traces of 'Feldir's group', the wererat-shapechanging smugglers who had sold them as slaves when they were children. It seemed that they used tunnels beneath the city and had a wide network of powerful connections.
After Bloddwyn had delivered the Alchemist's 'letter of recommendation' to Gallard van Junn, high priest of Caldis, Gallard and the city guard lured them into a trap in order to arrest them. The Alchemist, Bloddwyn's 'creator', had betrayed Bloddwyn in order to take revenge for Adelberg's death. Bloddwyn and his companions escaped the trap, but had to leave Eversted just two days after they had arrived, without any of the much needed knowledge about demons...
On the road south Bloddwyn briefly met Farkasz who had been looking for him and who gave Bloddwyn the crossbow pistol from Maestro Lichtenstenn, now infused with the essence of a slain chain devil.
In the small town Brukkdorvs Bloddwyn listened to the sad songs of a talented female bard Rajsha and found out that his mother was still alive and now known as 'Ravenna Deathwing'. She seemed to be still looking for her lost son and had turned 'darker' than before.
On the same day Bloddwyn got to know the ranger Bran Sparkhammer and the half-elf Alvery Vestergaard, and another ranger called Dorn Brashard. Together, they decided to protect a merchant caravan on his journey through the Griffon Mountains to the Blood Coast. On their way, the carvan was ambushed by kobolds, which seemed strange as kobolds are not indigenious in this region. When they met lord Ragnar and his Griffon clansmen on the road, he hired them to investigate the disapperance of some hunters in the mountains. In the following night, Bloddwyn and his new companions rescued Vanarel Tiranadal, a renegade drow war priestess, from her drow pursuers. In exchange, she helped them to get into an underground hiding place of a drow magician who seemed to be planning an assault in this region. The magician escaped through a portal, but Bloddwyn and his friends killed all other drow and their kobold servants in the caves - and above all three large barlgura demons. During the fights, the chain devil essence in Bloddwyns crossbow awakenend and showed its effective but frightening effects for the first time - Bloddwyn truly had begun to fight fire with fire.
Bloddwyn and his companions warned lord Ragnar and helped during the drow attack on the harbor town Rivgraad, killing a draegloth and a yochlol demon. A masked mage called Malikith seems to have helped the drow, but he escaped during the battle.
He found out that Bran and Alvery also had met the mysterious wanderer who seems to be Maesamdil, a priest of the Grey Wanderer. Bloddwyn decided to travel along the Blood Coast to the temple of the Grey Wanderer in Aaradem in order to gain knowledge about demons.
Bloddwyn left Rivgraad together with Jhessa and Bernard, first sailing to his hometown Korbel, searching for his mother. After they had heard rumors, they went to his parents farm, where they came just in time to help a winged woman clad in armor (presumably his mother) against a horde of bounty hunters.
Bloddwyn, Jhaessa and Bernard decided to seemingly 'sell' Ravenna to Baduk in order to finally bring justice to the murderer of Bloddwyn's father. In Korbel they found out that Badukh lived in Rafalquor, and so they needed to covertly travel with a slavers' caravan to get there. But before, Bloddwyn went to Aaradem to seek the wisdom of Maesamdil to gain a profound knowledge about daemons and other fiends. For 21 days, Bloddwyn also studied arcane knowledge in Aaradem, and with the help of an Elven wizard from the Moon Island, he discovered the foundations of spell magic within himself. A spirit familiar joined him in the form of a bat. Maesamdil told him that in order to deeply understand the nature of his foes, he would need to study for a whole year in Aaradem. Bloddwyn decided to first travel to Rafalquor and then concentrate on his studies in Aaradem. Together with Ravenna who posed as a slave, they joined a slaver caravan to travel through the Stone Desert. Being part of a slaver caravan turned out to be emotionally and physically a lot more challenging than expected, but eventually they arrived in Rafalquor. By then, Ravenna was no longer in a state of mind that would enable her to fight. Bloddwyn had magically analyzed her sword, which had confirmed that a vengeful spirit possessed it. Because of the suspicion they had raised and because of the way the slavers used to do business in Rafalquor, it turned out that their plan to free Ravenna and kill Badukh was impossible without sacrificing his mother. This was a very hard lesson. Bloddwyn decided to let go of his revenge for the moment because he was not willing to sacrifice his own mother. With the help of the church of the Maiden, they were able to set his mother free through the legal process. The priests of the Maiden also freed Ravenna from the influence of the vengeful spirit, and Bloddwyn decided to leave the sword in the temple. While Jhessalia stayed in Rafalquor in order to gather knowledge about Badukh, the others travelled back to the Bloodcoast. During the dangerous journey through the desert, his bat familiar proofed to be of great value.
For one full year, Bloddwyn stayed in the temple of the Grey Wanderer in Aaradem working very hard to study all he could find out about the different kinds of fiends and how he could fight them. His mother had found her inner peace and stayed with him, and the two of them trained together on a daily basis. During his year in Aaradem, Bloddwyn also searched for signs of Malikith, and he found out that the demons of Kha'ash'Du'Maal'Barid used to manipulate other demons and cults in the backgound without leaving obvious traces.
Before he left Aaradem, Bloddwyn asked Maesamdil for advice how to fight the evil forces in Rykthaven. Maesamdil advised him to maybe convince forces from outside to join him, for example the temple forces of the temples of The Lady or Iiudash.
In the night before leaving the Temple of the Grey Wanderer, Bloddwyn found a cloak covered in moving shadows on his bed. His reserach showed that this artefact seemed to originate from the Shadowfell, possibly having some kind of connection to a winged saurian creature.
Together with Riallah Irae, Bernard and the moon elf Sotha Ciyl, Bloddwyn once again travelled to Rafalquor. For one full year, Jhessa had prepared their attack on Badukh, using Rafalquor's own slave laws to keep them save from the guard. Yandrak and some clan fighters also joined them. In a thrilling fight against Badukh and his gang, Bloddwyn finally was able to kill Baduk, the murderer of his father, with a critical shot to his throat.
After their victory, Bloddwyn and his friends exchanged stories and Yandrak informed him about the events of the last year. There were many conflicts and uprisings across the continent. In Everstedt a demonic champion was defeated at the cost of the life of the high priestess of the lady. He also told him that Bloddwyns Draegloth head was stolen by mysterious elves and that Alvery Vestergaard seemed to have found more information about the demonic activities, so Bloddwyn decided to meet her before returning to Everstedt and Rykthaven. According to Yandrak, her family was secretly rebuilding parts of the Elven ruins of Elandiril. Sotha Ciyl joined Bloddwyn and his friends after reluctantly promising that he would keep the secret of Elandiril.
In the surroundings of Elandiril, Bloddwyn, Sotha Ciyl and Yandrak were exploring some elven ruins when they were attacked by elven skeleton warriors. Bloddwyn had the feeling that the borderline to the Shadowfell was blurred in this region. In Elandiril, Bloddwyn met Dorn Brashard. Alvery and her family had left for Hiyndurill Forest, but Dorn showed them an old elven temple of Lolth's sister Litheth. The paintings in the temple depicted how Lolth betrayed Litheth by making the elves creating the Maelstrom and thereby unwillingly opening a portal to the Abyss. It was only after this event that demons were able to manifest in this world. After the betrayal it seemed that Litheth chose humans as her followers, becoming henceforth known under the name "The Lady".
Concerning the elven attack on Rivgraad and the theft of the Draegloth head, Dorn told Bloddwyn that the chain armor of the attackers had shown the markings of the Moon elves. Confronted with the fact that this had happened after Bloddwyn had given him detailed information about the Drow attack, Sotha Ciyl admitted to be an agent of the circle of mages of the Moon Isles. His mission was to collect information about the events on the mainland. In order to protect the secret of Elandiril, Bloddwyn decided to take Sotha as prisoner and bring him to Arch Mage Nekaria in Everstedt.
In Everstedt, Bloddwyn handed Sotha Ciyl and his belongings over to arch mage Nekaria who would take care of the matter... Bloddwyn also got to know arch mage Yrdessa and talked with her about the demonic events. She told Bloddwyn that the voice of the chaindevil he sometimes heard was in fact his own madness.
Before they left Everstedt, Bloddwyn was received in audience by Tasha van Rikten, High priestess of the Lady. Bloddwyn left her his most welcome Book of Monsters to be copied by the Inquisition. In turn, Tasha van Rikthen would help Bloddwyn with the juridical problems concerning the death of Adelberg and also with his fight against the darkness in Rykthaven. According to rumors, the situation around Rykthaven seemed to be getting worse. After almost two years, it was time for Bloddwyn to go back to Rykthaven.
On their way back to Rykthaven, Bloddwyn and his friends Jhessa, Yandrak and Bernard heard rumors of necromancy around the town of Kirkthavs. Near the town, they helped a fugitive family to fight a Boneclaw demon. After the fight, they decided to go to Kirkthavs to fight against the root of the local problems. They found out that all of the towns priests had been killed in the last year. After talking to the inexperienced but motivated fighters of the "Wolves Pack", Bloddwyn decided to face the necromancers. In the former church of the Child, they fought against dangerous shadow spirits, shadow demons, the resurrected Boneclaw, various undead, worst of them ghasts in knight armor. Finally, they killed the female necromancer who had led this local cult. In return for his efforts, Bloddwyn was chased away out of town because it turned out that he was wanted for the murder of Adelberg.
On the road to Rykthaven they had to defend against a horde of Minotaurs that attacked them.
After almost two years, Bloddwyn finally returned to Rykthaven, but he had to enter the city incognito. The situation had obviously gotten much worse in his abscence, with cultists openly controlling some of the poorer districts od the city. Worst of all, Farkasz had been blinded by Pyrna the Green Hag a few weeks ago. Bloddwyn found shelter in Brandinburgh's Lot and started to investigate, at first keeping a low profile. When he found out that cultists of The Nameless held their unholy ceremonies in the former temple of Caldis, Bloddwyn and Riallah Irae attacked them and killed the priest. Bloddwyn also visited the Alchemist and her three blood hunters. He promised them to let them copy his book of monsters, and they reluctantly agreed with him to put aside their grudge, in order to be able to fight their numerous enemies.
During a scouting walk through shadow town disguised as easy victim, two small creatures from Shadowfell tried to strangle Bloddwyn, solving part of the mystery who stands behind the murders in Shadowtown.
Obus Beq once again invited Bloddwyn to dinner and proposed a business cooperation. Bloddwyn neither accepted nor denied the offer despite his urgent impuls to shoot Beq right into the head...The hag seemed to be no longer part of Beqs regular court, but he would only deliver her to Bloddwyn in exchange for other favors. Beqs villa as well as the landscape around it showed massive signs of demonic (the Nameless') influence. On their way back to Rykthaven, Bloddwyn tracked a Spined Devil spying on him and reporting to the Reavers.
He decided to hide in Shadowtown in order not to endanger the good people of Brandinburgh's Lot. On a hidden and extremely difficult to access rooftop, they found a secure shelter in an abandonend cabin.
In the next days Bloddwyn prepared the text for a forged letter masterly crafted by the small man in the fake handwriting of Pyrna the Hag, involving her in demonic activites, with the aim to raise the suspicion of the Reavers and making them hunt and question her.
Searching for the vampires of Rykthaven, Bloddwyn found catacombs beneath the graveyeard in the northern part of the city, but was unable to rescue a presumed female vampire as well as presumed members of the thieves guild against numerous swarms of undead. But when he left a letter for the vampires in a crypt, he got the answer to come back in a week.
When the members of the Wolf Pack came to Rykthaven to become bloodhunters, Bloddwyn once again visited the Alchemist to show his good will, giving the Wolf Pack his moonforged blades, informing the Alchemiste about his latest blood mutations and allowing all blood hunters to buy repeating hand crossbow prototypes from master Lichtenstenn.
A few days later Bloddwyn heard rumors that a group of people from the south had arrived in Rykthaven. Hoping that it would be the delegation of the Church of the Lady, he came just in time to fight off a considerable number of cultists and demons of the Nameless together with the Paladins of the Father and Mother. A considerable number of demons attacked the Paladins' camp under the command of a masked mage, killing the priestess of the Lady and eventually forcing Bloddwyn hand them over his Book of Monsters which seemed to be the reason why they had attacked them.
After the attack, the leader of the Paladins of the Mother - Grand Executioner Robbaer van Nickls - spoke to Rykthavens city council and convinced them to set aside the charges against Bloddwyn until the demonic threats were erased - and as long as Bloddwyn would not commit another crime against the law of Rykthaven. Having fulfilled their duty, the paladins returned to Everstedt.
A few days later, the female bard Rajsha, who had written the song about his mother arrived in Rykthaven and secretly gave Bloddwyn the orignal Book of Monsters. Bloddwyn gave it to Saskia to copy it for the temple of Iiudash, without telling anybody else about it.
During the fight against the demons, Bloddwyn had planted the forged hag letter on a cultists body, and the Reavers got hold of it. Soon afterwards the rumor that Bloddwyn Bluinach would meet the Honourable Gentlemen spead throughout the city. Bloddwyn went to the meeting in disguise and witnessed the Reavers kidnapping Pyrna the Green Hag...his revenge against her had finally succeeded. Bloddwyn took the opportunity to come to an agreement with the Gentlemen. He would give them a more 'understandable' field version of his book.
The next night Bloddwyn returned to the catacombs in order to meet with the city's vampires. His mother and Jhessa stayed outside and he waited for a long time in the catacombs without anybody showing up. During this time he allowed the spirit of the chain devil (?) to write a small passage in Infernal because he wanted him to prove that he was real and not his imagination. Bloodwyn's hand wrote a passage in Abyssal letters with his signature beneath it. Maybe he had unwillingly signed a contract with the devil? Bloddwyn copied the text without the signature and burned the orignal text. When a grieveously wounded Jhessa came down and cried for help against the ghasts and a Maurezhi, Bloddwyn finally realized that it had not been the vampires who he had written letters with, but the Maurezhi. On the surface of the graveyard, he tried to rescue his mother, only to find out that she had been killed and replaced by the city's Maurezhi demon... Bloddwyn killed the Maurezhi who had turned to his mother, but it was too late to rescue Riallah Iraeh - a bitter defeat only hours after the victory against the Hag...
Bloddwyn and Jhessa visited Obus Beq in his villa in order to end his miserable existence. Despite his poor state of mind, Beq persuaded Bloddwyn to give him informations about slavers in Rykthaven and let him live.
[...]
At the next election Bernard, with Bloddwyn's monetary support, was elected as city counselor of Rykthaven while Obus Beq and the leader of the Reavers no longer ran for the office.
When Bloddwyn and his closest friends Jhessa, Bernard, Yandrak and Farkasz once again went to Beqs villa to take revenge, Farkasz was killed in a heroic fight against Nameless's demons guarding the entrance. In the villa, they found that the Glabrezu Thalos had replaced Beq and was waiting to take revenge for the death of his draegloth son. He captured and tortured Bloddwyn and his friends. A few weeks later Bloddwyn was released at Rykthaven and saved by Friddrikk van Augsburg, vampire lord of Rykthaven. Not knowing the fate of his friends and how to defeat Thalos, Bloddwyn finally decided to receive Fridrikks blood in order to become a vampire. But Bloddwyns mutant blood reacted in an unexpected way to the vampire bite, causing Bloddwyn to become a "half-vampire" / "dhampir". He could still walk in the sunlight.
Hearing about Walderbach travelling south leaving Rykthaven Bloddwyn went on a hunt to kill him. After ambushing Walderbach's guards during their stay in an old shack the bloodhunter sneaked into the pray's room and woke him up. Before killing the man Bloddwyn questioned him and found out that Thalos sent Walderbach to let Bloddwyn know that he would spare Rykthaven in the next night of the demons in two years, if the monsterhunter would find and give him the draegloth head until then. Walderbach told Bloddwyn that Bernard was dead (wounded in the fight he seems to have dissolved in a cloud of sparks), that Jhessa had been released because she could do evil on her own and that Yandrak had been sent to the orcs of Jarrkhul as gift to Qharnate. Bloddwyn then killed Walderbach with his vampiric bite and let Thalos know that he accepted the offer by sending the body on a chart back to the city, while knowing that Thalos could not be trusted. He also swore to himself only to drink the blood of monsters, human or inhuman.
After revealing the Alchemist the truth about his dhampir condition, Roslyn told Bloddwyn that he had ruined 10 years of bloodhunter research data, and she left Rykthaven. Henceforth, Bloddwyn was hiding his vampiric nature. He wrote letters and informed the Iiudash temple, the Reavers and arch mage Yrdessa about Thalos. He also informed Saskia that he had committed a sin and was no longer worthy to enter the temple of Iiudash.
Before leaving Rykthaven for his quest to find his friends and regain the draegloth head, Maestro Lichtenstenn agreed to receive letters for Bloddwyn in the meantime and to contact arch mage Yrdessa in urgent matters.
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